


Through the Mirror Blue

by bold_seer



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hope, Ideological Conflict, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Villain Wins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-09
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-21 06:04:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16571045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bold_seer/pseuds/bold_seer
Summary: “Two men. One loaf of bread.”





	Through the Mirror Blue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [days4daisy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/gifts).



His mind is a current. Deep waters, obscuring his self.

He was someone, once. Before that, he was someone else. In another time and place. Not this wasteland.

He had a companion of sorts, not a person. But it’s gone. Only the feeling lingers. Sense memory.

He doesn’t remember anything but dust. And now he gasps at the wrongness. Of breathing, something he must get used to again. Of existing in a body. He touches his temple, and the blood gets on his fingers. Blood and dust, existence to nonexistence, then back again. His mind is full of darkness and doubt.

This is when he meets someone who already knows him. No man.

His name is Thanos, and he is no saviour, though he sees himself as one. Saviour and destroyer, come to demolish the old world. 

“I’ve brought you back,” Thanos declares in a booming voice. A god who can’t be bothered to disguise his vengeful, sinister intentions. 

_And now you’re bound to me._

**

It’s dark. The sit by a fire, staring at the blue flames. His mind and body slow down, becoming languid, as in a nightmare. When shadows chase you, and you can’t get away.

“Perhaps it’s you who were cursed with knowledge,” Thanos observes. “Not stark.”

It seems like a pointed reference to something, but Stephen can’t get hold of the words, their meaning, before they slip away. Disappear back into the depths, where ice bergs and unknown creatures lurk in a mirror world.

“Drink,” Thanos commands, and pushes the cup to his lips, and he does. And he _does_.

He dreams of nothing. 

**

When he is awake, Thanos asks questions of him. A Cassandra who saw doom, but knows not what he knows, though he carries the keys to the future. He answers automatically. He obeys.

But Thanos doesn’t know how to coax out every piece of information. He grows tired.

They move. They leave. Another planet, another time.

Another night, in another place, the wind carries him to a restless sleep. Its whispers invade his dreams: _quill, quill, quill_. A question that echoes unanswered.

**

Days. Weeks. Months. Time is meaningless. Nothing exists now but the present, and nothing exists in the present but Thanos.

Thanos speaks, “I’ve liberated you from failure. To reverse the effects is selfish, perhaps. But I require someone who understands the weight of decisions. Sacrifice. Convictions are a lonely burden.”

He directs his light at Stephen, who shields his eyes. An unbearably strong, white flare breaks through the numb darkness. 

His memories come back, a relentless assault, and so does the pain. But pain, after all, is a familiar friend.

It wraps around him like a blanket.

**

Consciousness, that sharp blade, cuts through his sleep. Twists the knife in wounded memories. He awakes without opening his eyes. Lying on the ground, he abides his time. The runes around his wrists glow. Thanos’ mark.

By now, Stark will have reached Earth. The Alien woman, Nebula, is also a survivor. As with Dormammu, he can buy them time. Participate in Thanos’ games, whatever they entail.

Without the Time Stone, his cheat sheet, he’s finding his way in the dark.

Fourteen million futures. Which one are they in now?

**

“You talk of balance. Justice. Love. But love is action.” Thanos thinks his love for the universe is so great that he will hesitate at nothing. “Nevertheless, you consider this –”

“Madness,” Stephen answers plainly. Thanos prefers him to speak his mind. At times.

With a neat cut, Thanos slices through the fruit he holds in his hand. There’s no stone. He sighs. “Two men. One loaf of bread.”

Good story, thinks Stephen. Read it once. “They could just share,” he points out tiredly. Instead of fighting to the death. Instead of being erased from the narrative.

“They could," Thanos agrees, giving him one half of the fruit. “Eventually, though, there won’t be two men. But twenty, or two hundred, or two thousand mouths to feed.”

That, too, sounds like a story. He bites into the fruit, its texture and flavour resembling an avocado’s. “And still one loaf.”

Even if he were the most selfless, caring person in the world, a doctor couldn’t help everyone. You couldn’t save them all. But any point Thanos _might_ have drowns in a river thick with the blood of his victims. He didn’t merely propose mass murder as a form of population control – he executed it.

Stephen gathers the evidence, as though preparing for a trial against a tyrant, summarising his heinous deeds. “You’ve killed more people than any genocidal dictator before you. You murdered the woman you considered your daughter. You tortured her sister. You methodically sought to eradicate half of humanity. The same crime you’ve committed on countless planets before.”

The sword splitting everything in two. Decimation was more merciful.

“You took the life of existing, breathing human beings, so that your abstract world view could flourish in their stead. For the sake of some hypothetical life.” No court in the world would acquit him. “That isn’t sacrifice.”

Sacrifice is giving up your own life, so that others may live. Giving up the components of your life.

His hands have started hurting again.

“How is Earth? On the brink of destruction? Chaos. Warfare. Power vacuums. Paralysed governments. Grieving families. Where’s your grateful universe now? Your peace.” The words, meant to be angry and accusing, grow quiet and weary.

“Utility comes at the cost of individual suffering.” Thanos sounds mournful, but never repentant. “Those that have been spared will find a better future. In due time.”

Time. Too much and too little of it.

“There was a man,” Stephen says softly, the subtlest warning in his voice. “Who wanted to save the world by delivering it to a dark entity.” He looks the Titan in the eye. “In the hopes of gaining eternal life, he found eternal darkness. And no way out.”

“You killed him,” Thanos remarks, his tone indifferent.

Stephen blinks. “No.”

Thanos shrugs off his answer. “He died, and his death solved your problem. Convenient. My death would’ve eased your fears, and yet, you threaten me with butterflies.”

The smallest smile plays on his lips. Their greatest difference, right there. “It wasn’t a threat. It was in defence.”

“You’re a man with a vision.” Technically, he is a man of millions of visions, some of which have come true. “You’re playing a long game.”

“You confuse me with Stark. It was an act of compassion.” Serving two masters, unwise. Having two motivations? “I may have made a mistake.”

“How humane,” Thanos dismisses his concerns. “How human. There’s no force in the universe that can stop me now. I will be prepared.”

Stephen nods. “So will they. If, when, how humankind survives this. Pull ourselves together. Defeat you. It says more about humans than it says about you. It’s to _their_ credit.”

“Maybe. But my actions don’t negate my grief. Love is also a feeling. I grieve. I feel. More than you know.”

“Love is compassion.” _Of which you have none._

Thanos looks at him with fondness, the way someone else might regard the child or puppy of an acquaintance. “You’re wrong, wizard.”

But whatever he feels, has convinced himself he feels, it isn’t love.

**

“I’ve come to value our discussions,” Thanos announces, as if speaking of or to a peer and colleague. Fireside chats and whiskey. Champagne at a gala. A toast to the end of the world.

Stephen stares into the cup he holds, studying the clear liquid with suspicion.

“Water,” says Thanos, an amused note in his voice.

If they were having an academic debate, if they were doing almost anything else, Stephen would enjoy it a great deal more. Instead of struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. He must never forget, they aren’t equals. A captive and his captor. Or worse, a servant and his master. Much worse, a slave. To play with. Then break down. Fourteen million futures has room for a host of horrible ends. Here he is, stranded with a madman. The critical scene in a horror movie.

“Maybe one of the others would’ve provided me with more entertainment,” Thanos ponders. “Stark and his inventions. Quill and his –” He pauses to pick his words, deciding on, “Attitude. Yes. Levity in the face of danger, their shared weapon of choice.” He chuckles. “You’re guilty of that, as well.”

Stephen is guilty of many things – pride and vanity, an appreciation for expensive purchases that never tipped over into vulgarity, hedonism, wastefulness, egotism - name the vice or character trait. None of them are relevant now. Bits and pieces of his past, a crooked path that led him to the present.

“But you have seen things that your companions have not.” Thanos gaze, devoid of any perceivable emotion, fixates on him. “Things that elude even me.”

There are too many signs to read. Too many timelines, distant stars. Finite, infinite, the number doesn’t matter when you’ve lost count. Thanos can’t make out the constellations, connect the dots. His understanding of what’s to come is hazy.

“Maybe you didn’t treat it right,” Stephen observes.

Maybe a man (a monster) isn’t supposed to know his future. Maybe Stephen shouldn’t have _looked_. Preventing prophecies often leads to them coming true. In surrendering the Stone, he may have contributed not only to Thanos’ ends, but to the world’s ending. Or his own end.

“Careful,” Thanos tells Stephen, grabbing him by the throat. He has the hold of someone who has choked the life out of others. “No one knows you still breathe. No one will save you. Not Stark. Not anyone turned into ash. Not anyone left on Earth.”

Stephen wheezes. Thanos lets go, just a little. “Whether a whim or a plan makes no difference. You would sacrifice yourself in vain. For another painful, lonely death that will change nothing.”

 _I would_ , Stephen thinks dizzily. Because it may change _something_.

“You don’t have to spend the rest of your days in misery.” There’s a heaviness to the words, which makes Stephen wonder if _Thanos_ is miserable. “I could show you kindness.”

It’s one way of beating an opponent into submission, he supposes. Despite the magic runes, his body belongs to himself, but he bears a mark on his soul. “I’ve refused more genuine offers.”

“I could force you to accept it. Those who disappoint me, I kill. Those who betray, are past their usefulness. Those who must die. You could be useful.”

Strange looks at his ugly, shaking hands and laughs. He’s short on spells at the moment, which he blames on Thanos’ symbols. For all he knows, it’s his general malaise. He can hardly consult the latest spellbook. “What use could you possibly have for me?”

Thanos seizes Stephen’s left arm. To intimidate him further. To demonstrate his point. “Your magic. Your insight.” The runes constrict, roping around Stephen’s wrist. It’s moderately painful. “If you favour life over death, work with me. Building a better world. You’ll be rewarded.”

The implication: resist, and you will be punished.

Infinity Stones or not, magic defences or not, Thanos is grotesquely strong. He could easily break Stephen’s arm, even by accident.

Ironically, for someone who has died so many times, the best thing he can do now is stay alive.

He speaks deliberately, putting all his remaining strength on that one word and syllable, the culmination - _no_.

**

Don’t – 

(It was never love.)

**

Life breaks you. And you pick yourself up. Life can break you in a million more ways.

He’s bleeding, he thinks. There’s the taste of blood in his mouth. But his hands, Thanos’ hands. A doctor has complete control over the body. Their patient’s, ideally, but also their own. Every response. Now he feels robbed of it.

He’s shaking, can’t stop, but the tremors aren’t running through his hands. He moves his arms, up-down, up-down. He wants to scratch at his skin. He wants out of his body, out of the damaged shell, but he can’t reach the Astral Dimension.

There isn’t anywhere to go.

Waves of thoughts wash over him, but his mind grabs hold of one line. _The curse is come upon me_ , he repeats to himself, a little hysterically. For the first time in a long time, perhaps ever, he thinks he has reached his limit.

**

Afterwards, he goes to the river. Styx, thinking of all the souls that haven’t returned. Something in him is irrevocably broken, but the machine works. His arms and legs move. Tin soldier.

He undresses. Takes off his dusty robes, his worn boots. Drowning isn’t a merciful end, merely cold and tragic, but the water greets him with a lover’s gentle caress.

 _And down the river’s dim expanse_ , he recalls, reaching the surface.

A bold man would’ve acted already.

**

Thanos bathes. Washes off his sin, the latest addition to an endless list. Welcoming his new world, cleansed mind and spirit.

The Gauntlet lies on the lonely brink of the shore. Six Infinity Gems, glittering in the sunlight, tantalisingly beautiful. A glimmer of hope? They’ve brought on so much destruction.

Once, he was enamoured with wealth. Success, caught up in his ambitions. Status, to a point. Respect. But not power, not really. Some thought doctors looked at people and decided who they wanted to live and die. He played a god when picking his cases, but he also promised to do no harm. Alleviate the pain as best he could.

Wrapped up in omnipotence is carelessness. Thanos knows Stephen won’t kill him directly; convictions are a burden.

If love requires action, he must act. A tempting thought, to reverse - anything. His aches. Thanos. Regardless, he reminds himself, it happened. It happened, whether or not he remembers it happening. The flip-side to fourteen million futures that he remembers, whether or not they occurred. He has followed this path too far to simply turn back. Since giving up the Stone, he can’t pick and choose his battles anymore.

To use it in some other way? A weapon that terrible could warp his own nature. His heart isn’t that pure. It never really was.

Is it the height of selflessness that he considers, if only for a moment, abandoning all his ideals? Or the epitome of selfishness, because he needed a personal motivation to get to that point. Revenge is a poor form of justice, but justice sometimes seems like the best form of revenge. Thanos was right about one thing. His death would’ve been convenient. It still would be.

Does he need a judge and jury? No one in the universe would fault him for killing Thanos, even in cold blood. If they find a better way, _the_ way to return all lost souls, he will at least have experienced the momentarily satisfaction.

And yet, it solves nothing. He could turn back time, at least attempt to, but every hour of every day, they move further from the breaking point. Selfless intentions or not, he could do greater harm than good.

More so than intellect, hard work, his instincts have never proven him wrong. He’s been careless. _Seeing all his own mischance_. He won’t make the same mistake again.

He makes up his mind. His future is no longer in his own hands, but neither is anyone else’s. He can only trust to hope that somewhere, beyond the stars, Earth exists. As do the Avengers.

With one last look at the Gems - close enough to reach, a possibility so remote it scarcely ever existed - he turns away.

**Author's Note:**

> **contains: assault (off screen)**
> 
> Quoting: Tennyson - The Lady of Shalott (1842)


End file.
